


A Favor For A Friend

by Anoke



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Classism, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, F/M, Gender Noncomforming Lambert (The Witcher), House Party, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Nonbinary Lambert (The Witcher), Other, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Past Aiden (The Witcher)/Lambert (The Witcher), Past Rape/Non-con, Soft Lambert (The Witcher), Statutory Rape, Stregobor (The Witcher) gets his ass kicked, Teenage Pregnancy, Teenagers Being Shitty, Underage Drinking, dieting, though sadly not onscreen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoke/pseuds/Anoke
Summary: Keira takes her boyfriend Lambert to a party thrown by some of her friends. Things go a little sideways.At least the food is good.
Relationships: Lambert/Keira Metz
Comments: 12
Kudos: 48





	A Favor For A Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this one has a lot of warnings in the tags. Basically everything in there isn't dwelled on too much, and I would call this about on the level of the actual Witcher books, or possibly a little less. Have a look at the end notes for some description of what exactly's going on. Please let me know if there's anything I missed!
> 
> Also; NB Lambert: my general headcanon is Lambert is perfectly fine using he/him, so that's what I have here. Additionally, Keira hasn't quite fully grokked to the whole situation of Lambert _being_ nonbinary yet, so she uses gendered terms when referring to him other than just the he/him pronouns.

Keira took a deep breath and looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a navy blue silk plunge neck halter top that showed off her mom’s ankh necklace, creamy leggings, a black skirt that was shorter in front than in back, and a pair of Latte Nappa Metz 100 Jimmy Choos with the little chains. Her makeup was subdued and unsmudged, and she’d made sure her hair wasn’t going to frizz with a judicious application of hairspray.

“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “You can do this.”

‘This’ was a combination graduation-and-college-acceptances party being held at Fringilla Vigo’s house, since her uncle Artorius was out of town. It wasn’t exactly the party that was making her nervous; it was that she was bringing her brand-new boyfriend along. He and most of her friends hadn’t actually met yet. She really, really liked Lambert, despite him not being, well, anything like most of the other guys she knew, and she was so fucking proud that they were both headed to UC Berkeley. Lambert was insanely smart and a super hard worker, but he hadn’t really thought he would be able to go to a good college, even though both his older brothers had managed to get into good schools. Keira had helped him out a bit with SAT prep and college and scholarship applications, and the day he’d gotten his acceptance letter was one of her happiest in recent memory—and only a little bit because she'd decided to ask him out the same day and he'd said yes.

The doorbell rang, and Keira jumped slightly and hurried downstairs. She wasn’t taking a purse, since she and Lambert were walking over to Fringilla’s and he had pockets deep enough for both their eyeliner pencils and lipstick. Not that he’d probably be wearing lipstick tonight; Lambert was really cagey about the makeup thing. She’d only found out about three months ago, when she’d walked in on him fooling around with the super-deep-discount kits you could get at Target, and she’d been most of the way through helping him redo it with better-quality stuff before it occurred to her that someone else might have thought it was weird. Now she just assumed that if she couldn’t find something—other than her foundation or concealer—that Lambert had probably borrowed it, and she had a bunch of Fujifilm instax mini pictures of him, carefully hidden away from prying familial eyes, in makeup and a bunch of her clothes that had fit him. He looked _really good_ in them too, which was both flattering and annoying, because sometimes he looked better in her stuff than she did.

“Hey,” Lambert said as she answered the door. He looked _amazing_ in a black dress shirt with three-quarters sleeves that had fancy fake red-colored pre-rolled cuffs and a pair of black pants. The chain for his silver wolf medallion was just visible around the red collar lining of his shirt, and he had his usual boots on, but he’d clearly gone over them to get rid of the scuffs. Keira thought he had just a touch of eyeliner on too, and probably a little mascara.

“Wow,” Keira said, giving him an obvious once-over with a smile. “I may have to go put on some lipstick to match your sleeves.”

“You don’t have to,” Lambert said, looking a little embarrassed.

“I want to,” Keira said, and gave him a peck on his adorable mouth. “Come on in, this’ll only take a couple minutes.”

True to her word, she was back down again shortly. She handed him a couple of tubes of makeup to hold in case she needed a touch-up later, which he dutifully pocketed with minimal grumbling. She’d have to see if she could get a picture of him in the lipstick and his dress shirt after the party; the colors really did match and he would look spectacular.

Fringilla’s house was only about fifteen minutes away, and Lambert had her in stitches for half the walk describing Geralt’s latest misadventure while volunteering at the wildlife center near his college. His problems were always related to the animals liking him _too much_ , and this time apparently a hawk tried to go for the face of a visitor who was screaming at him about something.

The party was in full swing by the time they arrived; there were easily a dozen people visible on the front lawn, and Keira could hear splashing from the pool out back. She didn't bother trying to knock—nobody would hear it over the music she could hear playing, so she just opened the front door and took Lambert's hand to lead him in.

"Do _all_ of you have such fucking ridiculous houses?" he said in her ear, looking at the spiral staircase in the entryway leading up to the second floor and the mosaic-tiled floor in the entryway.

"I think a couple of people have real mansions," Keira said, waving at a few people she recognized.

" _Real—?_ " Lambert said, then shook his head. "Are you hungry at all? I didn't have dinner yet."

Keira smiled at him. She knew his family tended to eat late, after the studio was closed for the evening. "I haven't really either. Let's see what they have."

It wasn’t too hard to wind through the throng of people. There were a lot of them, but Fringilla’s house was spacious and open.

"Well _fuck me sideways_ ," Lambert said with immense distaste as they walked into the dining room. "Never seen appetizer trays at a 'guardians are out of town' party before."

Keira had to bite down on her lip to keep from snorting. He _really_ wasn't wrong.

“I hope they have some shrimp,” she said. “If they’re going to do it, I might as well get some of my favorites out of it.”

“I just hate how tiny the servings are. Need a whole tray before you have anything approaching a meal,” Lambert grumbled. “Want a beer?”

“Please,” Keira said.

Lambert headed off towards the coolers just visible in the kitchen, and Keira walked over to the trays. There were some really tasty-looking puff pastries with cheese and onion, and she ate one in a single bite, being careful not to smudge her lipstick. They were as good as they looked, and she picked up a second one.

“Wow, Keira. You must not have eaten anything all day!” she heard from behind her, and Keira turned with the pastry puff halfway to her mouth to see Marti Södergren smiling at her.

“What’s the point of going to a party if you don’t get to enjoy the food, I say,” Keira said with a smile in return, and popped the pastry into her mouth. It suddenly didn’t taste nearly as good, and after she and Marti had exchanged pleasantries she picked up a plastic glass of crudités instead of another pastry.

Lambert circled back over with two beers in hand, and she waved him off as he tried to hand her one. “I think I’ll go without for the moment.”

He gave her a slightly worried look. “I thought you wanted one?”

She tried to smile at him. “I changed my mind.”

He put the beers down on the table and brushed his hand along her arm. "Should I not be—"

"What?" Keira said, confused, then remembered what Lambert had told her about why he'd been put into foster care. "No! No, it's not anything like that, I just figured I should maybe eat first," she said, gesturing weakly with the crudités.

Lambert looked into her face, and she tried not to look guilty or upset.

"Okay," he said softly, and leaned in to give her a quick kiss that left his cheeks a little darker than normal.

She actually smiled for real at that—she loved seeing him blush—and took a very disappointing bite of carrot dipped in (plain! For fuck’s sake) hummus.

“Keira!” she heard, and she turned to see Fringilla approaching, spectacular in a silvery-blue dress. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too, Fringilla!” Keira said, and gave her a careful hug. “Did the entire graduating class come? This place is packed!”

“Oh, probably not _everyone_ ,” Fringilla said breezily. “Though Istredd is here, and a few of my other friends who graduated last year too, to congratulate everyone.”

“Oh!” Keira said. "I hadn’t realized some of the college crowd would be here."

Fringilla laughed a little. “Not too cool for us just yet,” she said, then looked at Lambert for a long moment. “But I don’t believe I know your...?”

“My boyfriend, Lambert Wilczyński,” Keira said, gently tugging Lambert forward a little. “You probably know his older brother, Geralt?”

“Oh yes,” Fringilla said. “The one Yennefer’s dating.”

She and Lambert exchanged pleasantries, then Fringilla turned to Keira again. 

“Really, you must come over and say hello to Istredd and the rest, we barely got to see you this year!”

Keira laughed, slightly awkward. “Well, SAT prep and college applications, you know.”

“Of course, but that’s no reason to neglect your social life,” Fringilla said.

Keira saw Lambert’s eyebrows go up as he took a drink of his beer, and privately agreed.

“Give me a few minutes, just to finish my,” Keira held up the little veggie cup, “and I’ll be right over.”

“Of course,” Fringilla said, and gave Lambert one last look before heading back towards the living room.

“Is she always that snotty?” Lambert asked, sotto voce.

“Lambert,” Keira said, a little put-out. She couldn’t really argue, though; the initial assertion that the college students were here for Fringilla specifically had actually been rather annoying.

Another few people started over, though, and Keira was rapidly occupied introducing Lambert to several friends. When the rush slowed, she put down her now-empty cup and smiled at him. “I should go say hi to Istredd and everyone. Why don’t you stay here? You might be able to get a little more to eat when I’m not making you say hello to everyone.”

Lambert smirked at her. “Sounds like a plan. Do you want me to make you a plate?”

“I’ll be alright, but thank you,” Keira said, and gave Lambert a peck on the cheek before walking away.

Fringilla was sitting on the back of the couch in the living room, with a number of people Keira recognized standing nearby. She recognized Istredd, Stregobor, Detmold, and Coral and Rita. Keira approached with a little wave, but nobody returned it, all of them just looking at her. Something was wrong. She couldn’t put a finger on it, exactly, but—

“So, how’s it been slumming it, Keira?” Istredd asked with a cruel smile. “I assume the fucking must be something spectacular, if it has you bringing _that_ to this party. Or did he threaten to hit you unless you invited him?”

“Has he tried to propose yet, or is he waiting until he gets you pregnant?” Stregobor added, the creepy fucker. A twenty-four-year-old had _no_ business hanging around high schoolers.

Oh fuck. She was a _fucking_ idiot. She should have seen it coming. She knew how they treated people, she'd been _part_ of the group until about a year ago, when she'd found Lambert cliff-diving into the flooded quarry from a platform forty-five feet up and he'd yelled at her to fuck off. She'd instead stuck around to make sure he didn't accidentally kill himself and then managed to impress him by stripping to her skivvies and making the jump herself. (She'd later told him that she'd done a bit of competitive platform diving and it wasn't that much further to fall, but he'd remained impressed.) He'd been trying to deal with his boyfriend just fucking disappearing and the police deciding they just didn't care about looking for a gay seventeen-year-old foster kid, and had been terrified and snappish, and she'd been working through her dad getting remarried to a woman less than a decade older than she was, and they'd just kind of stuck.

Not going to the same high school and not flaunting their friendship had let her skate by with the others, and she'd even managed to get away with being friendly with Triss and Yennefer over text, finding out how they made sure Lambert’s brothers got scholarships instead of being shunted into the military by the frankly creepy recruiter at the public high school, but apparently bringing Lambert to a party was a bridge too far. Never mind that he’d gotten into UC Berkeley on better grades than she had, even with weighting—hell, on better grades than probably everyone else in the room had—he’d been a foster kid and he didn’t go to private school and he was a crude asshole instead of a snide one, and that was enough to damn him in the others’ eyes. Istredd had even more reason to be cruel—he’d never gotten over Yenna dumping him for Lambert’s brother in Keira's freshman year.

Damn her too, for her propensity for angry tears.

She wasn’t crying just yet, though, so she looked down her nose at them and said “I don’t know, boys, I’d think you would be the experts there.”

Stregobor’s eyes narrowed and Istredd’s jaw dropped. It was an open secret that Stregobor had gotten poor Renfri pregnant and stalked her over it until she’d stabbed him with her mother’s antique brooch and run away, and it was common knowledge that Istredd had threatened to beat Geralt so badly that he’d end up in traction if he kept seeing Yenna. That had been the last straw for Yennefer, and she’d bawled Istredd out in the lunchroom, exposing a number of extremely embarrassing secrets of his to keep the humiliation focused on him, and had privately told him she’d personally make sure nobody ever found his body if he tried to follow through on his threat. He’d either believed her or had had second thoughts about trying to fight a guy whose dad ran a MMA studio, because neither he or Geralt had ever turned up injured. Of course, nobody ever actually _talked_ about it, either.

Keira wasn’t so stupid as to hang around in the shocked silence waiting for another volley, though. She turned around and walked off, biting the inside of her cheek to try to keep from bursting into tears, and managed to make it all the way into the ground floor bathroom with the second door leading out to the pool deck before screwing up her face in an enraged sob. She locked both doors and sat down on the stupid fuzzy toilet lid cover and tried not to scream loud enough to be heard over the noise from the house-wide surround-sound stereo system, which some _brilliant_ fucker had just told to play ‘Gold Digger’. She’d stay here long enough to calm down, then she’d go find Lambert and they could leave. She’d probably have to apologize to him, too, which he deserved but which didn’t make her feel much better for not noticing just what kind of fuckwads she’d been hanging out with this entire time.

Before she could collect herself, someone rapped at the poolside door. She ignored it, but they kept going. Keira huffed angrily and peeked around the shutters on the inset window, ready to yell at whoever was trying to get in, but stopped short at the sight of Lambert with a whole appetizer tray in one hand and an elaborate decanter filled with some amber-colored alcohol and two glasses of ice in the other.

“ _Lambert?_ ” she couldn’t help saying, as she unlocked the door and let him in.

He put everything he was carrying down on the sink counter and took a deep breath.

“‘M sorry, Keira,” he said, clearly uncomfortable.

Keira’s jaw dropped. “Why are you apologizing?”

Lambert looked even more uncomfortable. “I mean, I don’t like any of ‘em, but they’re your friends, aren’t they? And now they’re being assholes because,” he cut off for a second and gestured vaguely at himself.

“They’re not my friends,” Keira said miserably. “I’d say ‘not anymore’, but just, thinking about how they treat everyone, I don’t think they ever really were in the first place. _I’m_ sorry, for dragging you along to this.”

“It wasn’t all bad,” Lambert said. “At least, until they started being nasty to you about me.”

He’d heard that? She hadn’t even seen him in the room, but then again she knew he had amazing hearing. He still looked uncomfortable, too, or maybe—

“Lambert,” Keira started. “Did you—”

He rubbed at his nose, clearly embarrassed now. “I just, I know you can defend yourself, but—”

“Am I going to have to worry about murder charges?” Keira said, with a slightly watery laugh.

“Just assault and battery, if he even decides to try,” Lambert muttered.

“Was it Istredd or Stregobor?” Keira asked. She was a little surprised to find that she didn’t actually care that Lambert had hit someone. Maybe she just trusted that he would never do it for the wrong reasons.

“Stregobor,” Lambert said, a little taken aback. 

“I don’t think he’d dare admit he got his ass kicked by an eighteen-year-old,” Keira snorted.

Lambert grinned at her, head tilted forward and looking up through his eyelashes, an almost-startling expression of slightly malevolent joy. “That _is_ why I decided to go for him.”

Keira laughed again, and pulled her boyfriend into a hug. He hugged back, a bit awkwardly to start, but eventually he relaxed into it and started rubbing lightly at her back. Keira shivered a little at the very pleasant feeling of his warm hands on her bare skin. The halter top had been an excellent idea.

“I, uh, also brought some food and stuff,” he said after a minute, though he didn’t let go of her. “We can at least get snacks and some fancy booze out of this.”

“That sounds perfect,” Keira said, meaning it. Fuck the stupid idea of not eating. She pulled Lambert down to sit on the floor with her before reaching up to snag the appetizer tray and one of the glasses.

The tray turned out to contain shrimp canapés and bacon-wrapped mussels on little bamboo skewers. Keira felt a little touched that Lambert had remembered her mentioning how much she liked shrimp.

“Now, let’s see if Fringilla’s uncle’s fancy booze lives up to the container,” Lambert said, unstopping the decanter and giving the contents a cautious sniff. “Huh. I was expecting scotch, but I think this is añejo.”

“Did you break into his liquor cabinet?” Keira asked, curious, holding out her glass and taking a canapé with the other hand.

Lambert looked at her a little sheepishly.

“Good,” Keira said. “Fringilla’s been so nasty to Yenna recently, she deserves to get into trouble. Let’s stash it in the bushes by the pool when we leave, so they don’t have time to hide that people got into it before he gets back.”

The sheepish look turned into another grin, and Lambert poured her a generous measure of the tequila before attending to his own glass. Keira popped the canapé into her mouth and hummed appreciatively at the chili-lime seasoning, then took a careful sip from her tumbler. The añejo was _strong_ , but it didn’t taste nearly as gross as any of the other ‘adult’ liquors she’d tried. In fact—she took another sip.

Lambert took a skewer and held his glass up in cheers. "To not giving a fuck about what assholes think."

"Except the ones we like," Keira added, and clinked her glass against his. Maybe the evening wouldn’t be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Going down the list:
> 
> Underage Drinking, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism: characters are at a house party where parents/guardians are not present and alcohol is being consumed. Both Lambert and Keira have no problem with drinking and both participate, although neither is actively drunk at any point during the fic. There is also a passing reference to Lambert's canonical backstory, namely his alcoholic father.
> 
> Dieting/EDNoS: at least one other girl at the party taking place in this is dieting, and says something that makes Keira feel guilty/bad about eating/drinking something with calories.
> 
> Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Statutory Rape, Teenage Pregnancy: Lambert's canonical backstory, as well as some implied abuse both by Istredd (who is completely book canon and therefore an absolute jackass who tried to challenge Geralt to a fight over who got to date Yennefer) and Stregobor and their making accusations of the above WRT Keira and Lambert's relationship. Stregobor is also a creepy 24-year-old who is interested in hanging out with and dating high schoolers, and who got Renfri pregnant and stalked her for a while.
> 
> \---
> 
> Now, stuff that isn't in the warnings but that people may want to know a little more about:
> 
> Renfri's living with her aunt and doing okay. Geralt and Vesemir helped her get away.
> 
> Aiden is not dead; he got picked up by his half-brother Bertram Tauler, aka Jad Karadin, who is a pretty wealthy drug dealer/human trafficker. Karadin claims he wants Aiden to have a good life, but Aiden is not happy about being involved in Karadin's illegal activities. I think in this universe Lambert's going to run into him again during college and he and Keira and Aiden will all figure out how to get Karadin arrested.


End file.
